(Written April 6, 2008) In early 1968 I had just gotten back from Viet Nam a few months before. I still had a year to go in the Army, but I was on medical profile (from injuries in Nam) and so managed to get stationed at a base close to home - Ft Meade, Md. At that point I didn’t really need to use the cane anymore, but I used it anyway, because it helped me get and stay in an office job.

An office job was particularly appealing at the time, because if I hadn’t been in the office, I would have been doing what everyone else was doing - riot control training. The summer of ‘68 we were on riot control standby alert, and had to be ready to roll within hours. ‘Training’ consisted of hours of being side by line in a line, rifles with fixed bayonets held in front of you, and moving together, as a line, yelling “Back!” “Back!”. Hours of this, often in the hot sun, with full gear. Next day, do it again. The office was a really good place to be. I probably had not needed to use the cane, as they pretty well left me alone anyway. I was the only Nam vet in the company, and I had more stuff hanging off my uniform than the officers. They seemed to be OK with me just riding out my final year in relative comfort.

I think the rest of the guys were kind of happy when Marting Luhter King Jr got killed, or at least excited. Not that they had anything against King, but it meant that they would actually get to do something besides walking around in an empty field in the hot sun yelling “Back!”

We were on the road within hours of getting the call. It was evening rush hour, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway was nearly a parking lot. No matter. We had a lot of Armored Personnel Carriers (APC’s), big trucks and jeeps, none of which cared if they ran on pavement or not. We roared into DC riding in the center grass median strip, raising clouds of dust and kicking dirt and stones over the cars parked in the traffic jam.[Read More…]